Grateful for some proper advice on our heating system please!

[Vinoir]

Hoping you can help us with a heating system question that has caused a lot of anxiety for us as a family. Just grateful for some proper, practical advice.

We have a 50-70 year old four bedroom family house that has a central heating system powered by a Worcester boiler downstairs (and a dedicated heater water tank in the loft). Connected are about 12 radiators. The downstairs ones are connected via what we believe is copper piping under our parquet flooring, and the upstairs radiators unusually by steel piping (not sure if galvanised or not).

Last year, the upstairs radiators didn’t warm up, so we did two things, a power flush and also replaced all the rads to more ironically modern column ones. The power flush removed tons of sludge and what we assume was corrosion within the steel pipes? The boiler seemed to be in decent condition other than the build up of muck which the mag cleaner caught. He put lots of inhibitor into the system tank in the loft and bled the rads and all was well.


However, last month, when we had our boiler routinely serviced (as part of Home Care level four), the engineer said our pipes being steel needed to be replaced in a matter of time as they were probably so heavily corroded. This seemed to be not what the previous independent engineer said, who told us our pipes were relatively okay and not that much a matter of concern. He also stated the coil/ring in the boiler had expanded and the boiler was getting worn and that’d probably need replacing soon. So a really worrying diagnosis as we aren't a rich family by any means!

Everything is running fine right now, but upon entering the loft, I lifted the cover of the heating tank and noticed a floating layer of brown, orange sludge? Is this the inhibitor the prev engineer put into the system or rust collected from passing through the pipes?

Is there anything we can do to get us by 5-10 years? Any products that can clean up and stop the rust occurring within? Can I just scoop out all that gunk from the tank? I ask as we aren’t a rich family by any means and are up against it right now.

Also as a last resort, how much would it cost approximately to change all the pipes of a four bedroom house to copper? Do we definitely need to? We can’t afford to go cold with kids in the house nor have leaks emerging.

Really grateful for any truthful independent advice as my partner and I are naturally worried.

 

[SimonG]

The "big" companies engineers are also salesmen. Chances are nothing wrong with boiler or pipework. Keep it clean and it will last.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Rippling / coiling on Worcester’s hex are fine nothing wrong it’s just how they end up a few years down the line but that effects nothing

 

[king of pipes]

Maybe a second opinion would be a good idea here it may well be possible to nurse the system though a while longer,? the formation of magnetite in the system is of concern though water, steel,heat, and air are the ingredients for the formation of black sludge, the tell tale sign of a problem is the water condition in the header tank this shouldn't be in such poor condition, there is a ingress of air getting into the system somehow? Please be aware heating systems do need replacing and steel piped systems are not great for a family property, replacement costs vary across the country and materials have more than doubled so it will be a expensive to upgrade and replace the system. Regards kop

 

[Last Plumber]

Are these steel as you might see in a commercial building or does it look like 1/2" copper but made from steel?
It could - going off age - be truwell, which was externally tinned thin walled steel tube. It was used in the copper shortage.
If there are corrosion issues, it doesn't last long.
If you don't know, post a photo?

 

[blockeddrainssydney]

changing into copper pipes is a good decision but you won't need now those steel pipes have still lifes to run. you just needed a little bit of services of the pipes and boilers and some parts replaced and it will work fine for serval more years.

 

[Ric2013]

If they are genuinely steel pipes with threaded joints then they should be thick and will be fine and if you considet most radiators are thin steel, if there aren't any leaks any rusting should be a slow process.

But the rust in the header tank is of more concern. Suggests either it wasn't cleaned as part of the flush process or active corrosion (orangey rust suggests the latter). My inclination would be to turn off the isolator on the ballcock (or tie up the ballcock) and monitor whether the water level in that tank drops progressively over several days. Shouldn't really need topping up for months. In doing this I'd be trying to rule out a hypothesis that your system is leaking and dumping the inhibitor while constantly adding fresh water via the autofill nature of a ballcock.

Any photos of the header tank? Could be just some old dirt that escaped the powerflush and has been sitting in the pipes connecting the header tank to the system.